tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post6229947014725640959..comments2020-06-04T20:54:50.955-07:00Comments on Dark Buzz: Counterfactuals: Hard ScienceRogerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03474078324293158376noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-17271691250043652922014-04-24T11:03:05.463-07:002014-04-24T11:03:05.463-07:00Logically they are the same. Logically they are the same. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-84122904889424746022014-04-03T14:07:00.121-07:002014-04-03T14:07:00.121-07:00Saying &quot;if A then B&quot; is not the same as ...Saying &quot;if A then B&quot; is not the same as saying &quot;A causes B&quot;. Consider the example, &quot;if I do a rain dance, then it rains.&quot; As you say, if it rains every day anyway do matter what I do, then the logical inference is true. But you still would not say that my rain dance is causing the rain.Rogerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03474078324293158376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148573551417578681.post-24168320156217352712014-04-03T13:07:16.366-07:002014-04-03T13:07:16.366-07:00Causality is closely connected with counterfactual...<i> Causality is closely connected with counterfactual analysis. If an event A is followed by an event B, we only say that A caused B if counterfactuals for A would have been followed by something other than B. If rain follows my rain dance, I only argue that the dance caused the rain if I have a convincing argument that it would not have rained if I had not danced. A truly causal argument would provide a connected chain of events from the dance to the rain, with every link in the chain causing the next link.</i><br /><br />No, this is incorrect. <br /><br />The conditional &quot;If A, then B&quot; is only false when A is true and B is false. When A is false and B is true or false, the conditional is true. Thus the case of non-A being followed by non-B does not disprove the conditional. The fact that it didn&#39;t rain after you had not danced does not disprove the claim that if you had danced, then it would rain. Only the case of it not raining after you had danced would disprove the conditional.<br /><br />In an indirect proof or proof by contradiction, a conditional claim is proved by positing a counterfactual to the conditional claim (i.e. for the conditional claim &quot;If A, then B&quot;, the counterfactual would be of the form, &quot;If A, then not B.&quot;) and then showing that the counterfactual leads to a contradiction and is thus false. Since the counterfactual is shown to be false, the conditional claim is shown to be true. I think this is what you&#39;re thinking of in your discussion of &quot;counterfactual analysis&quot;, although you have the details wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com